Dirk Meinköhn

Copyright © 1997 Dirk Meinköhn. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

For the case of a reaction–diffusion system, the stationary states may be represented by means of a state surface in a finite-dimensional state space. In the simplest example of a single semi-linear model equation given. in terms of a Fredholm operator, and under the assumption of a centre of symmetry, the state space is spanned by a single state variable and a number of independent control parameters, whereby the singularities in the set of stationary solutions are necessarily of the cuspoid type. Certain singularities among them represent critical states in that they form the boundaries of sheets of regular stable stationary solutions. Critical solutions provide ignition and extinction criteria, and thus are of particular physical interest. It is shown how a surface may be derived which is below the state surface at any location in state space. Its contours comprise singularities which correspond to similar singularities in the contours of the state surface, i.e., which are of the same singularity order. The relationship between corresponding singularities is in terms of lower bounds with respect to a certain distinguished control parameter associated with the name of Frank-Kamenetzkii.